A Lesson in Accessible Communication with Perkins School for the Blind
Perkins School for the Blind is a non-profit education organization based in Watertown, Massachusetts. They’re the first school for the blind established in the United States, on a mission to make education accessible to students and young adults. They recently worked with Soofa to advertise their annual fundraising event, in order to provide more educational opportunities for their students and others.
We spoke to Kat Roach, the Event Marketing Specialist at Perkins School for the Blind, to learn more about their campaign highlights.
Soofa Sign on the sidewalk at Arsenal Yards in Watertown, MA. Perkins design is bold with colorful stripes.
Opportunity
Perkins was looking to promote their third annual “Everybody Walk/Move!” event on their campus in Watertown and the surrounding Boston area. Their goals for this campaign were to expand people’s knowledge about Perkins as a school, get people to attend the event, and share the Perkins mission with new people.
Roach mentioned that Perkins also wanted to show “what we're doing not only in Watertown but across the world. Our name can be a little confusing sometimes, since we serve not just kids that are blind, but kids that have visual impairments along with other disabilities.”
Braille section on white Soofa Sign. Soofa logo in red
Solution
To prepare for their fundraising event, Perkins chose two Soofa Signs for static advertising and six for digital around Watertown. They created a bold vinyl design which complimented their inviting and colorful branding. In addition to Soofa Signs, Perkins advertised on billboards and by word of mouth around the community and to their student network.
Perhaps the most exciting part of the Perkins campaign is the Braille used with their static vinyl, located just under the digital screen. They’re the first brand to bring Braille to Soofa Signs, and the project helps emphasize the importance of accessible communication for people everywhere. “For ads, I think it's about where you physically place it that makes a difference for accessibility,” Roach mentioned.
“I think a lot of times accessibility is about making sure that if someone needs it, it's there, because if it's not, then they can't experience it at all. And with this event at Perkins, it was important that people were well informed, and that everyone had plenty of space to move however they needed to.”
Results
As a result of their static campaign with Soofa and other marketing strategies, Perkins was able to raise over $200,000 dollars to enhance their programming for years to come. They had 1,060 in-person and 135 virtual attendees at the event, and Roach said that, “People came up to us saying they heard through the grapevine about the event, they saw the billboards, or saw the Soofa Signs. Overall, people saw there was visible talk about it. There were definitely new people that came and even brought their families.”
On Soofa Signs, their static campaign gained them 836,795 total estimated impressions over one month. They plan on running digital ads until December 2023, which will provide other opportunities to support and attend events at Perkins.
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